Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Security theater: All you stuff is encrypted but they have the decryption keys
Proprietary App Store: The apps and the store itself are proprietary and I don't trust Apple.
Gaslighting their customers: Images shared with Android users from iPhone are purposely crushed to a unreviewable quality. The idea is to convince people that Android takes terrible photographs.
From recent experience: They read your screen which means the government reads your screen as well. Its okay. if you’re doing nothing illegal, you have nothing to hide! All history books that could tell you otherwise are paywalled anyway!
I do like their laptops, but for literally everything else: the fact that I basically don’t own my own hardware.
I can’t install or distribute my own software without Apple’s arbitrary approval. When Apple decides it’s done supporting the products, I can’t even install a different OS like Linux because the hardware is completely locked down… they become paper-weights.
That is not how ownership is supposed to work.
(e.g. my former project lead refused to touch other peoples devices because using them "doesn't feel like apple, eww")
Planned obsolescence: the other day I was setting up a refurbished MacBook air from 2017. It officially runs only up to macOS 12. I wanted to install apple's productivity suite iWorks (pages, keynotes, numbers) on it.
But the AppStore said I would need macOS 13 to download and install it. Why the eff doesn't it allow me to install an older version of those apps, and why does the 2017 not support macOS 13?
So I installed Open core Legacy Patcher, built a macOS 13 installer. Installed 13 with absolutely no issues and finally was able to install iWorks.
Any non versed or risk taking user would need to buy a newer Mac... good job apple.
Conversely I have a dell xps from 2018 that run very well with fedora atomic (kde). I upgraded the SSD, WiFi card and replaced the battery. Should easily last me another 5 years
I don't hate Apple in terms of privacy. I hate Apple for a myriad of other reasons. Mostly related to locked down ecosystems.
Seeing as no-one's answering the question in terms of privacy (although I agree with their sentiment)
Trust. You have to trust that they will respect your privacy. They actually talk a good game, are probably superior in privacy to the average android (but not GrapheneOS or Linux) in so much as they fend off other entities trying to hoover your data, mostly so they have exclusive access (at least to metadata, actual data may currently even be secure but that can change and possession is nine tenths and all that). At the end of the day, they're a greedy mega-corporation and cannot be trusted if they need to keep that line going up this quarter. I much prefer transparent systems that keep me in control and possession of my data.
I like their hardware, excellent build quality (shame about long term support and e-waste though). Will probably pick up a cheap M1 Air once Asahi linux stabilises.
I don't like closed systems, vendor lock-in, overpriced tools, or buying equipment that I'll never truly own.
Anti-open(source), anti-open(standards) l, anti-consumer, anti-planet, anti-repair, anti-honest. What else do you need?
Cos i dont trust anything that says privacy but doesnt open source and provide reproducible builds.
Few reasons, first is this: 
. Seems like as long as something has a clean interface, or it looks shiny enough, then all its privacy faults are overlooked.
Apple also seems to intentionally cultivate and sell their products as privacy-friendly, which is clearly not the case (see image above).
2nd reason is that I had an iphone 2g (one of the first models, I forget which one), and it had bluetooth support. An iOS update broke it, and when I reached out to apple, they lied to me and told me my device had no bluetooth module at all. They're one of the worst offenders of planned obsolescence, and have become one of the richest companies on the planet because of it.
3rd reason: they sell overpriced products to mainly to high-income imperial-core consumers, selling an image of "upper-class professional". Look at a graph of iOS market share worldwide, vs its market share in the richest countries. Apple didn't even bother to condescend to make affordable products for the global south.
The markup on iphones is something outrageous, like 40% of the purchase price is going to the shareholders of apple, not the workers who built the phones. By buying apple, you are mainly supporting these wealthy parasites. Its also why other smartphone brands have higher performance at half the cost of iphones. They really bank on the fact that they're selling an upper-class identity, and less of a phone.
4th reason: Their ecosystem is locked down in such a way as to make it difficult for open source development. iirc apple won't even let you use the GPL for any app on their app store.
They've redefined privacy to be privacy from everyone except themselves, and then indoctrinated people that they are the most privacy conscious company.
Major privacy issues that come to mind include:
Can you read their source-code? Nope. And they falsely advertise their phones as Privacy alternatives when they collect just as much data as Google.
Walled garden, overpriced exploitation of that locked ecosystem ($5000 monitor stand kind of shit), green bubbles/blue bubbles, dominating all tech with their middle of the road/copycat approach where Android was eventually saturated with same type of execs and "gave up" on differentiating until everything was the same sealed back glass rectangle without MICRO SD expansion memory, leading the charge on "brave" feature killing enshitification like removing the headphone jack, plenty more...
Wife spilled some beer in the keyboard. Screen doesn't turn on, it doesn't hold a charge, keyboard doesn't work. But we need sensitive data off the drive.
Take it to their "genius" bar where we are told there is nothing that can be done for the old data and we should just buy a new one.
I take it home, Google a bit and try target disk mode. Et Voila I'm in and can get that data from the hard drive as though it was an external HDD.
Why the Apple "genius" didn't share this option with me? They don't actually care about helping.
And that's the rub with Apple. They don't give a fuck about their users or developers. Just want to herd them around to make more money off their overpriced garbage.
There is no sideloading
No unlocked bootloader on iPhone, iPads and Apple Watches
The products are not repairable enough
Golden cage.
Their way or no way.
It's really simple.
Oh adding to that, ever since I received the knowledge: the support, guru or whatever appointment? Worse than doctors and I hate that too. Why??
Their way or no way
The one Apple product I still own is an iPad and I run into this constantly.
Support for network shares in the files app is barely functional at best ("Just use iCloud!")
Mouse support is still super limited ("Just use touch!")
You can't install applications from anywhere but the appstore ("sECuRIty")
You can't install a proper browser or browser extensions (I don't know even know what Apple's excuse for this one would be)
You can't disable or modify window tiling ("It's just like an iPhone, because fuck multitasking!")
Apple sells the iPad as a computer replacement, but basically all its capable of is watching Netflix or basic note-taking. The longer I use this thing the more I want to buy some x86 tablet that I can just install Linux on instead.
Anti-consumer shit like crazy pricing, doing everything they can to discourage repairs, going after third party parts/accessories/service, and how locked down their OSes are. Also, it's ridiculous that they don't have any sort of real enterprise management and IT has to rely on third party stuff (ironic given how Apple can be about third party stuff sometimes).
On mobile, forcing browsers to only be designed as re-skins of Safari. I would like an actual Firefox mobile browser that you can use uBO with. Right now Orion can do that somewhat, but it’s not polished.
Walled gardens are antithetical to real privacy.
The fact that they claim to be the most private, but also the most closed, is a contradiction. And that irony doesn't sit well with a lot of people
Same reason I don't like sony. They're too busy telling the people who buy the fucking products what they're allowed to do with them, and spend the rest of the time creating proprietary shit that traps their customers.
Hardware is great. Everything else is pretty much an abusive spouse.
Locked down proprietary ecosystem that lacks basic support for open standards.
No thanks
They pioneered modern day planned obsolescence, they also popularised unrepairable electronics. They try to block or bastardise any right to repair bills. They force chip distributors to not sell chips they use so their products can't be repaired. They make building applications for Mac at scale a huge pain in the ass and extremely expensive, the solution I recently built wastes insane amounts of power because of the way Apple licenses their stuff. Overall it's a shitty company who fucks poor people in developing nations, fucks the environment and fucks it's customers. I don't care how well it may or may not work, fuck Apple.
Also OSX ui is shit and annoying.
Not supporting the open nature of hardware and software.
Basically it's too much of a hassle to make their software run on other hardware or use other software on their hardware.
As a citizen of the world its because they are slavers and fuck slavery. One of the biggest lobbiest against fighting slavery too.
Having been friends and family IT though its because they suck. They suck to work on. They suck to devolop for. They suck to run server stuff on. They suck to game on. And they cost an arm and leg for the privilege.
iPhone does not allow you to have privacy due to its blackbox nature, and is simply a false marketing assurance by Apple to you. Recently, an unpatchable hardware flaw was discovered in Apple's T1 and T2 "security" chips, rendering Apple devices critically vulnerable.
Also, they recently dropped plan for encrypting iCloud backups after FBI complained. They also collect and sell data quite a lot. Siri still records conversations 9 months after Apple promised not to do it. Apple Mail app is vulnerable, yet Apple stays in denial.
Also, Apple sells certificates to third-party developers that allow them to track users, The San Ferdandino shooter publicity stunt was completely fraudulent, and Louis Rossmann dismantled Apple's PR stunt "repair program".
Apple's authorised repair leaked a customer's sex tape during iPhone repair. This is how much they respect your privacy. You want to know how much more they respect your privacy? Apple's Big Sur(veillance) fiasco seemed not enough, it seems. Still not enough to make your eyes pop wide open?
Apple's CSAM mandatory scanning of your local storage is a fiasco that will echo forever. This blog article should be of help. But they lied how their system was never hacked. I doubt. They even removed CSAM protection references off of their website for some reason.
Pretty sure atleast the most coveted privacy innovation of App Tracking protection with one button tracking denial would work, right? Pure. Privacy. Theater.
Surely this benevolent company blocked and destroyed Facebook and Google's ad network ecosystem by blocking all those bad trackers and ads. Sigh. Nope. Now it is just Apple having monopoly over your monetised data.
Also, Android's open source nature is starting to pay off in the long run. Apple 0-day exploits are far cheaper to do than Android.
The problem with iOS is the lack of freedom and control you have as a user. Yes, Apple may be "better than Google" when it comes to some aspects of default privacy on their devices (being better than the worst is hardly something to brag about), but as a user the level of privacy you can achieve on your iPhone is always limited by the design of the operating system, where you are just a user with no permissions and no ability to modify or even replace the operating system entirely. You are locked into a proprietary ecosystem that you cannot get out of.
I just hate being told what (not) to do. If there is a solution to the problem, fucking let me solve it. I don't need anyone's permission or be told to deal with it just like every other schmuck.
I feel like my intelligence is being personally insulted. Any company deciding that I shouldn't try to repair my phone, which is my property, because they believe I am too retarded to fix it, can suck a dick.
It boils down to two broad categories for me:
Closed source that pretends to be your friend. They are just wearing a different mask than google, microsoft, facebook, bytedance, and so on. Any privacy gained is a circumstantial side-effect that will cede to any monetary interests and will be used as an excuse to lock users into their walled garden.
Because I want to repair and fix my things without needing special software or proprietary tools. Along with a userbase of American teens who will treat you like shit just based on the phone you have.
I'm so glad I switched away.
Like what another person said, hate is a strong word. But when it comes to Big Tech, I'm all for the word.
Might have missed adding something to the list. Will add more if I have.
Mostly their marketing practices. They are designed well but mostly designed to keep you locked in one way or another.
For me, their desktop is not as intuitive as people make it seem and lacks simple shortcuts that most other desktops have.
On mobile, its the restriction of customization and options. They are getting better at customizing but still limit you on options for anything outside of their apps. They claim to be private but follow similar practices as other companies, just in a more quite way with better PR.
Anti-freedom
Profit-maximising
Literally killed the 3.5mm to increase profits
Acts holier than thou
I don't care how nice the sports car is, if it's not going where I want it to, I'm not getting in.
they make bad products that are media darlings because it's fashion more than anything. they're treated like consumer advocates but they are one of the absolute worst companies for vendor lock-in, and are absolutely anti-consumer, but will have innumerable articles written about how they're "the best" for any given measure. it drives me nuts how the public perception of them is the complete opposite of what they actually are, and i don't get it.
also their software is bad. all due credit their hardware impressed but it doesn't matter if the software is crap.
and they aren't private: they've got all your data but have somehow convinced everyone that it's fine that they have it because they're somehow better than every other large tech company.
